


My First And Last

by lilcrabcrab



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Character Death, Childhood Friends, Euthanasia, Friends to Lovers, Leukemia, M/M, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, i warned you, okay don't read the rest of these if you don't want spoilers, okay so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 15:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17389151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilcrabcrab/pseuds/lilcrabcrab
Summary: Jeno had always been Renjun's everything: his first, his last, and everything in between.He had never expected to lose him.This is their story, told through firsts, lasts, and New Year's Eves.





	My First And Last

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is a one shot written for New Year's competitions on NCT Amino, so also check it out on there if you want: 
> 
> https://aminoapps.com/c/nctamino/page/blog/my-first-and-last-noren-oneshot/kwN7_EjnsGu7EQZ38x027Lb6W0bV3emoYg1
> 
> Please leave comments! I love comments! I will read each with glee and fall in love with each of my readers

The first time Renjun saw Jeno, they were barely three years old: it was a miracle that he even remembered it. Both of their parents had gone to the same low key New Years Eve party, the sort for parents that couldn’t bear to leave their kids alone, but couldn’t be bothered to hire a babysitter, and instead found a compromise by just bringing their kids, dumping them to the side, and hopefully not getting too drunk. The two of them had been left in the upstairs area, and told to ‘play together’.

Renjun hadn’t liked Jeno at first - he remembered this with wistful amusement. For the first half hour that he knew Jeno, he sat in a corner of the room, ripping little pieces off the wallpaper behind him to play with.

Then Jeno had toddled up to him, with a toy car extended in greeting, and reluctantly, Renjun had accepted it. They spent the first hour or so playing with it, but that devolved into arguing over who was allowed to hold it. For the next hour, they chased each other around the hallways, tackling each other to the ground and rolling around giggling when running got too tiring.

After that, Renjun didn’t remember what they did exactly, only that it was fun, and he was happy. Being with the other boy, he felt something settle in his simple child’s heart, like the last jigsaw piece falling into place.

Their parents found them curled around each other, asleep, an hour after midnight.

From then on, they were a pair: Renjun and Jeno, best friends forever.

\---

The first time Renjun went on a ‘date’ with Jeno, if you could even call it that, they were only 13. It had started off as just a normal day together: the two friends, hanging out, as they had done for as long as they could remember. Jeno was full of energy, and it had snowed for the first time that winter the night before. When Jeno dragged Renjun out to play in the snow, there was no way Renjun could refuse him.

Building a snowman (which Renjun thought was absolutely beautifully made, before Jeno destroyed it) turned into subtle attempts to catch the other off guard with a snowball, and finally, a full blown snow fight, until Jeno was breathless, laughing on the ground covered in snow, and Renjun was prancing around gleefully. In the moment, Renjun didn’t think it was anything special: they were happy, but that was how they always were when they were together, and he loved Jeno, but that was something he took for granted, as obvious as the promise of tomorrow.

They went inside after Jeno had caught his breath and stopped laughing. Renjun’s mum made cups of hot cocoa for them, and they sat cuddled on the couch together, sipping on their drinks and talking non stop about nothing much at all. The idea that Renjun loved Jeno, genuinely, fully complete loved Jeno, was in love with Jeno, settled in his heart some time around then, spreading warm and comforting through his being like the cocoa he was drinking.

For a moment, their conversation paused, and Renjun took the time to look at Jeno - really, actually, look at him, see the way he looked curled up next to him, admire the fact that he really was incredibly, wonderfully, adorable.

Jeno noticed him staring, and tipped his head to the side in confusion.

“I like you,” Renjun blurted out, and pressed his face into a cushion in an attempt to hide the blush growing on his cheeks. When he looked up again, Jeno’s eye smile was close to his face, too close (not close enough).

“I like you too,” Jeno said.

\---

The last time Renjun went on a date with Jeno, he had no idea that it would be the last. Jeno had told him, one day, that he wanted to take him out, and that it would be a surprise: all he had to do was be ready at 6 that night.

Jeno turned up at his door with an almost too bright smile on his face. He took Renjun’s hand, and led him down into his car. They drove to a restaurant on the other side of town, one that Renjun had always talked about going to but they never had time to visit. Jeno told him that he’d booked a whole nice room just for them there, and they went in hand in hand. Renjun was happy, so happy, lost in the infinite ocean of gratefulness that he had Jeno, had always had Jeno, had never been without the one person in his life that was his everything.

It was normal. That wasn’t to say it was boring, only that it was the way things always were: perfectly, always, them. They talked and ate and laughed and if it wasn’t for the fact that Renjun knew Jeno so well that they were almost the same person, he wouldn’t have noticed that Jeno was trying to find the courage to say something until it happened.

“Renjun I-” Jeno started, but then stopped, looking down at his hands in his lap.

“What is it?”

“I had to go to hospital again.” Jeno looked up at Renjun, and in his eyes, Renjun saw pain and sadness and a thousand apologies, a million unsaid, unfinished words. He took a deep breath and said only two words: “It’s back.”

For a second Renjun didn’t know what he meant, but then his fears and worries from the years before came flooding back and he realised.

“Th-the leukemia? I thought you were in remission, I thought it was better-”

“There’s been a recurrence… and the doctors said that this time it’s probably not going to get better.” Jeno’s expression, usually smiling, was tired and hurting. “I don’t want to be pessimistic… but it’s likely that after this-” Jeno stopped there: the end of the sentence was left unsaid, but Renjun could guess what he meant.

“It’s okay,” Renjun said, even though it wasn’t, it was the opposite of okay, his world was crashing down around him and there was no way to stop it. He wanted to turn back time. He wanted to fight the entire world for being so unfair.

“This is our last real date. I’m going back to hospital tomorrow,” Jeno said, simply. The amount that he was hurting was so much that he couldn’t even begin to express it, so instead, his voice was just empty. “For the rest of the night, can we forget about this, and pretend that we’re forever?”

Renjun nodded, wiping away tears that he didn’t know had fallen. The rest of the night. The closest they could ever come to forever.

“Forever. Tonight.” he replied.

\---

The first time Renjun went to the hospital with Jeno, they had thought it was nothing serious. They were 15 and invincible - Jeno had hurt and fractured his arm when he had fallen over while dancing but he’d get a cast, not dance for a few weeks, and everything would be fine.

The X-Rays came back funny, and the doctors started looking concerned and pacing around, and a severe faced doctor came in and asked Jeno’s mother whether they would consent to a blood test.

Renjun wasn’t allowed in to the place where Jeno was tested, so he sat outside, picking at the hem of his sweater nervously. There were magazines sitting in a rack beside him, but he didn’t bother to pick one up. Instead, he watched the people around him as they came out or received their results, and counted the minutes until Jeno came back.

After a while, a nurse came out, and asked him who he was to Lee Jeno. He considered saying they were best friends, but then thought ‘fuck it’ and told her he was his boyfriend.

The nurse didn’t look too surprised: only pitying. She motioned for him to follow her, and took him inside to a consulting room, where Jeno and his mother were already waiting.

Jeno looked scared: this fact was imprinted in Renjun’s mind, even more so than his reaction when the news itself was delivered. He looked lost and confused, and when Renjun came in, he perked up considerably, grabbing hold of Renjun’s hand with his good one as he sat down next to him. As the doctor started talking, Renjun felt Jeno’s hand moving anxiously in his.

“I’m sorry to say this, but we do not have good news for you,” the doctor said. Renjun’s breath caught in his chest, and he felt Jeno’s hand tighten and stop fidgeting in his. “The results from the blood test suggest that Jeno is suffering from Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a form of cancer.”

Renjun stopped. For a second that felt like forever, that he wished was forever, he stopped breathing, stopped moving, stopped functioning. No, he thought, no, this cannot be true, the words that he had just heard were not true, could not be true, could not have just happened. He wondered how everything had gone so bad, so quickly: it didn’t seem possible. It felt like a dream, and Renjun wished desperately, hopelessly, to wake up.

Jeno was frozen as well, beside him. His mouth formed a perfect O, as the idea that he was horribly, irreversibly, fatally sick dawned on him, sinking into him like a death sentence.

“At this stage, treatments could remove most, if not all of the cancerous cells from your body,” the doctor said, and Jeno grabbed onto this tiny hope, listening and nodding numbly as treatments were described.

In the back of Renjun’s mind, an alarm blared on, telling him that things were not alright, that his world was ending. It was probably true. Jeno was taken to a room in the hospital where he would stay for treatment, and Renjun was asked to leave.

He walked out into the sunshine and the nothingness and the loneliness, and cried until he could hardly see straight.

\---

The last time Renjun went to the hospital with Jeno, it wasn’t actually ‘with’ Jeno. Jeno had already been there for the last few months, and Renjun had visited him every day without fail.

It was New Years Eve, the night before they became legal adults in Korea. The two of them had discussed, already, what was going to happen this night, both between themselves and with Jeno’s parents and the doctors. It was sorted, and it was going ahead. There was no going back, they had all agreed.

Renjun felt like his heart was going to fall out and die, withering, on the hospital floor.

For the last day of the year, Renjun would spend the entire day with Jeno, reliving the years they’d spent together, loving each other, and staying with him as he grew weaker. It would be a perfect day, or at least, as perfect as a day could be with Jeno hardly having the energy to move.

And then after that, nothing. The end. Curtain call, final conclusion, last goodbye.

~~Happy~~

New Year.

\---

The first time Renjun kissed Jeno, they were almost 14 years old. Like the first time they met, their parents had decided to go off to a New Years party for old, boring people, but this time, they were deemed old enough to stay at home alone.

It was the best way to spend new years eve: Renjun was sure of it. They had the entire house to themselves, and each other for the entire night. They made a mess trying to cook dinner for themselves, then gave up and ordered pizza to have while watching a movie.

Half an hour before midnight, the movie was finished, but they stayed snuggled up next to each other, not saying much. Renjun just basked in the pure niceness of having Jeno with him: his boyfriend, his love, his everything.

After a while, Jeno turned to him, looking cheeky and a little nervous.

“It’s almost midnight,” he said.

“And?”

“You know that thing on New Years Eve where people-”

“Kiss?”

Jeno swallowed and looked at Renjun’s lips.

“Yea. Kiss.”

\---

The last time Renjun kissed Jeno, it was also just before midnight on New Years Eve.

Midnight: the end. The leukemia was untreatable this time, and Jeno was getting worse, drastically worse, every day. The decision to end it, in what the doctors referred to as ‘Death with Dignity,’ had horrified Renjun at first, but when he saw the pain that Jeno was in almost constantly, and the way that his eyes faded with hopelessness, he realised that it was right, in a situation that had no right.

He would be euthanized, painlessly, easily, in the first seconds of the new year.

As people everywhere counted down the seconds to the new year, Renjun counted down the seconds left in Jeno’s life. He knelt down beside Jeno, placed his hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat, and leaned down to press their lips together softly and simply. There was no fanfare or drama to it; just the bittersweet last kiss, seconds before Jeno would be gone forever.

A doctor came in, grabbed hold of Jeno’s arm with stiff clinical fingers, and injected a dark liquid into Jeno’s arm. It seemed like it was pushed in too fast, and in this moment of no going back, Renjun wished desperately, irrationally that he could stop this. He watched as Jeno went still, hand still lingering on his chest.

Renjun heard fireworks go off somewhere far away, and felt Jeno’s heartbeat slow down and then stop as the fireworks fizzled out.

“I love you, so so much,” Renjun said.

The silence stared back, merciless.

The first hour of the first day of the first year that Renjun lived without Jeno, he spent crying in the corner of a hospital room, broken.


End file.
